don’t get too cliquey. this is a major mistake lots of people make in high school. be nice to everyone and they will be nice to you.

study hard. join a sports team or club. get to know your teachers and guidance counselor. don’t be afraid to ask for their help.

go to at least one crazy party.

DON’T lose your virginity.

volunteer to answer between one and three questions in every class everyday.

TALK a lot.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:

make sure you shower and brush your teeth everyday and your clothes are neat and clean when you go to school.

<3

When I called Johns Hopkins U to ask about admissions, they said they “look” at the 9th grade scores, but they don’t calculate those scores when they figure out your GPA. They look at your grades in only CORE ACADEMIC CLASSES (sciences, English, social studies, math, maybe foreign language, I’m not sure) for grades 10 and 11 and half of 12th grade when they decide who to admit. They add up all the grades for the core classes, take the average and that is your GPA that they work with. 90-100 is an A, 80-90 is a B, etc.

Want to know what else they said?

Only 21% of the applicants are accepted.

They look to see if you took the hardest courses offered at your school.

Did you have leadership roles in all of your after school activities?

75% of the kids admitted to JHU have a GPA between 3.7 and 3.8

They like to see volunteer work and good letters of recommendation from your teachers, but the high school transcript is the most important thing. If that doesn’t look good, nothing else matters. They don’t want to hear about potential, they want to see what you have done.

Typical ACT score of those students who are admitted: 30-34 composite (top score is 36)

Typical SAT score of admitted students: 1350-1500 in the old SAT (top score was 1600 then)(800 in math and 800 in English is top score on old SAT)

The lady in Admissions said that they don’t really care much if you made National Merit semi-finalist. They care about how hard your classes are and what grades you got in them.